Color Cone with free updates [for PC & Mac]

Photoshop & co let you undoubtedly do quite a lot and the 3-way color correction of most video editing software offers a lot of possibilities. Yet the newly developed software Color Cone allows for much finer and more individual adjustments. In addition Color Cone is a very intuitive software and thanks to the specially designed Color Warp technology it is able to deliver very harmonious results.

In the case of Color Cone, Picture Instruments relies on the HCL color model, which is displayed in the shape of a bicone in the software. Comparing this model to the very common and widely used HSV color model it immediately becomes apparent that the HCL color model only allows for saturations in highlights and shadows that actually exist. As a matter of fact, in the case of 0% or 100% luminance there exists no color saturation anymore, even if other color models allow it.

Despite the fact that Color Cone is a stand alone application so far, the 3D Lookup Table (3D LUT) export features make the integration into the workflow with other software very easy. To make matters even easier and smoother it is possible to insert a screen shot (i.e. of a scene you wish to edit) into Color Cone and then work on the color. In addition Picture Instruments is planning to develop Color Cone as a plug-in for various applications. If you wish to participate in that process and help to decide which plug-in format will be supported next just go to http://www.picture-instruments.com/plugins/ and fill out the questionnaire.

Whether you open an image from the hard drive or you insert it from your clipboard – both approaches result in the same workflow: To create a point (color range) a color is being picked using the eyedropper tool. The radius (around the selected color) determines the color range to be edited. Then, fine adjustments can be made to the selected source-color. If necessary, the selected area can be highlighted. Next, a target color will be assigned to the selected source color and Color Cone transforms the entire source-color range into the target-color using the Color Warp technology.

In this way you can create and define as many measuring points as you want and very specifically improve the colors in your image. The results are impressive!

In addition to the actual Color Cone three controls for contrast, chroma and luminance are available for fine tuning.

If you are done with your desired edits and adjustments you can save the final image to your hard drive. In addition, you can also export the look you have created for this image as a 3D LUT (Lookup Table) so you can use it in almost any video editing software or in Photoshop. All settings can be saved as a preset to be used for future edits in Color Cone.